


In the Glass

by MrCourtesy



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Body Horror, Character Death, Gen, No Romance, Psychological Horror, Thriller, Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 03:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3103856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrCourtesy/pseuds/MrCourtesy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a song by Ok Go</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At first there was no question.<br/>Who would not rather be their reflection?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Glass

**Author's Note:**

> The title is of the same name of the song by Ok Go. If you desire more, please comment.  
> Very respectfully,  
> MrCourtesy

In the Glass

 

Few things remain after battle. It’s never a guarantee that the ground you stand on will still be there—let alone the men and women you fought with. Through the debris and the smoke, some things remain constant.

The blood on your hands will always be yours and the decisions you make are irreversible.

In this battle that Steve Rogers fights, there is no blood on his hands, but there is no going back. There is no revival.

 

There is no redemption.

 

In the flickering morning light amidst the wreckage of the street, Steve stands silent. Smoke and ash float in the breeze, and in the quiet dawn of the day he can hear the distant wail of police sirens. Steam wafts over the crimson red of his boots, and heat permeates the thick leather of his gloves from the ruptured piping below. There is a stain of crusted red over the pull of his hands, and looking into the distance he can see the trail of dried blood in his reflection. A long line of it spatters his chest and arms, and as his gaze tracks up he looks into his own eyes. Foreign but familiar, he wonders at the oddity of his own visage. What he sees—in a way, he supposes—doesn’t belong to him. The arms are too sure, the chest too proud, and the eyes far too pure to be his own. He cannot comprehend that such eyes have known poverty in her meanest depth, or illness in his palest gaze, for they look back with such confidence. For a little while, he imagines a world in which he was so assured that every decision he made was right and that every word he said was true.

 

“Cap? Cap?” A buzz in his ear brings him back to the present, but his gaze lingers at the stranger in the glass. He raises a hand to the communicator in his ear.

 

“Hawkeye? Everything okay where you are? Are all the hostages taken in?” He asks, a little dazed.

 

“Yeah, we’ve got a helo taking most of them downtown. You alright? You took a couple knocks to the head back there.” Clint hums, and Steve imagines that he’s in the Quinjet when he hears the quiet click of switches in the background.

 

“I’m good,” Steve says, turning to walk away, but out the corner of his eye, he spots a flicker of movement that does not belong to him. He turns back, but all that greets him is the tarnished red and blue of his uniform in the glass.

 

He shakes it off, and turns away as Clint tells him that Tony will be there to pick him up momentarily.

 

————

 

A few weeks later, he catches himself at it again; it is dark this time, and there’s no one around as he jogs an evacuated city trying to find his team. No one is really on coms—there is not much to do except for clean out the rubble and ensure there are no trapped survivors. A heat search turned up nothing, and paramedics have already cleared out. He runs along doggedly, although it feels like he’s searching for something. He’s not entirely sure exactly what it is until a flicker of motion catches his eye in the water below a bridge. Readying his shield, he goes to strike, but realizes that it’s just his own image, he lowers his stance. Light shines down from a lamp post nearby, rendering him a murky orange yellow in the water below, and he wonders again, paused on the edge of the steel bridge. Caught between his own thoughts, he watches in the night. Another stain of red trails from the top of his mask down to the crevasse of his mouth, and he wishes that the blood were his own, and that the world did not require such a high price for peace. In a shy part of his own heart he wishes that he was not the executor, and that he need not have part in the exchange of violence for calm.

 

Strangely, in the dark of the night, his own eyes shine bright blue, unchanging, and Steve wonders if he blinked, if they would blink too. 

 

“Hey, Steve? Steve? Steve, where are you?” He hears Tony over the microphone, and shakes himself away from the silly thought.

 

“Somewhere…” He starts dreamily, “Somewhere lower east side.” He looks away from the river below. “Oh! Your GPS is on the the fritz. Hold on, I’ll come get you.” Tony intones distractedly. Steve breaks away from the bridge barrier and begins jogging back the direction he came. “No, it’s fine,” he hears himself say distantly, “I think I got it from here.”

 

————

 

For a while, no one notices that he’s been distant, and no one notices the times where he looks off and away, but then the silences become more common. More and more he finds himself just looking disbelievingly at the person in the mirror, and after a fight or a battle he will sometimes just disappear.

 

Natasha corners him one day that he’s been off for hours. It’s the grey of a cloudy afternoon when she finds him in a filthy side alley, looking at himself in the broken image of an antique mirror, still in uniform, still crusted in grime and gore. He’s so hypnotized that he does not hear her approach, and when her hand meets his shoulder, he swings around hard and fast, catching her wrist in an iron grip. When he realizes it’s her, he lets go as if she had shocked him with one of her Widow Bites.

 

“Shit, Steve,” she grouses, rolling her hand back and forth in wonder, “you nearly got me.” Her shock at the fact feeds his own, and he looks at his own hand as if it’s gained a mind of it’s own. The flush of where his fingers were stains her skin. “Sorry,” he offers lamely, tucking his shield away, reaching for her, but thinking better of it when she glares at him. Walking forward, she backs him into a wall, her expression calculating.

 

“Rogers, pull yourself together.” She states flatly. “Whatever the hell is going on up there has gotta stop. We’ve been looking for you for the last six hours. Oh, and stop turning your com unit off; we need you, as in present. Here…” Agent Romanov gestures at him generally, “…and here.” She says, tapping his forehead with one gloved finger.

 

He nods mutely, but he knows that whatever is wrong with him won’t just go away (somehow, instinctively, he knows). The words don’t make it out of his mouth, and he mutely follows her out into the street and into a waiting car.

 

————

 

He does his best to stop the madness on his own. ‘It’s just in your head, Steve,’ he tells himself. He pulls the mirror in his bedroom down, and covers the glass in his bathroom with a sheet. He makes himself busy after a fight so that it is impossible to get lost in that space between him and a mirror. Everything is good for a week.

 

Then the whispers start.

 

_‘It’s your fault.’_ It says.

 

‘ _They might die.’_ It says, _‘Just like all the other young men you sent to die at your command.’_

 

He plays music whenever he comes into a room, sometimes it’s oldies, sometimes it’s classical.

 

The voice quiets. When he sleeps, though, it’s so much louder.

 

_‘Where are they now? The men that you killed. Heaven? Hell? Neither?’_

 

He tries not to sleep as much, keeps himself busy.

 

_‘You don’t have to make the call. I can do it for you.’_

 

Suddenly, it’s been a week since he’s slept and he’s having trouble keeping things straight. There should be bags underneath his eyes, and yet…

 

He catches himself looking in a puddle of rainwater on the flat of the roof. How long has it been? He asks the time, unsure of whom he asks. Bruce answers. 

 

“It’s noon.” He says, about to walk away, but then he stops and turns back to Steve, concern wrinkling his features.

 

“Steve, have you been here this whole time?” He asks, incredulous. “Tony and I left for Guam a two days ago. Are you sure you’re alright?”

 

“No—yes—wait, no! I’m all right, Bruce.” Steve protests, shaking his head to clear the fuzz away, trying to hide his inner panic. It was two p.m. when he got back from the debriefing. It’s _noon_ again.

Passing a hand over messy hair, Bruce shakes his head and straightens the rumpled arms of his suit. “Look, if you need someone to talk to—“

“I said I’m fine.” He interrupts, opening the service door from the helipad and taking the stairs down like a man possessed.

He really is fine.

He supposes.

 

————

 

In his dreams there are a thousand dying soldiers and the cry of an alien voice from far away.

 

_‘Rest.’_ The voice says.

 

_‘You need not bear the weight any longer.’_ A whisper.

 

And since it’s been so long since he’s slept, he doesn’t even notice when he slips under.

He doesn’t even realize when he says,

 

 

 

 

“Yes.”

 

 

 

 

 

————

 

Light, bright and blinding catches his eyes when he comes to. He’s running, but there’s no stretch, there’s no burn, and there’s no heat to his breath.

 

In fact.

 

There’s no breath at all.

 

He wants to turn his head, but it’s as if there are no muscles for him to even turn. He tries to stop, but nothing responds.

Finally his feet stop of their own accord, and his body turns without his bidding.

Then he sees.

As if it is at a distance he can see himself in battle. The Avengers are taking on Victor Doom, yet again, and explosions are rampant. Clint is high above, firing arrows at Doombots, Natasha straddles another as she rips out it’s wiring, Tony taking potshots from above, Thor deflecting a missile with his hammer. He cannot see the Hulk, but he knows he is there, as a car sails back down the street, tumbling, though without sound.

 

Amidst the chaos, he sees himself stopped, and he’s looking into his own face. His mouth stretched in a knowing smirk, his eyes dark with some unknown light.

Then he sees himself raise his shield, and sends it flying right at him.

 

 

The glass breaks and Steve feels the splinter of it acutely across every inch of his body. It is as if he’s been electrocuted and yet cannot scream. There is no twitch of muscle. No heat.

 

Then he knows no more.

 

 

 

 

 

> "At first there was,
> 
> There was just no question;
> 
> Who wouldn't rather be their reflection?"
> 
> \--OK GO, _In the Glass_

 


End file.
